Story and photo provided by Bill Noonan.
November 28th was the anniversary for the Cocoanut Grove Fire of 1942 where 492 lives were lost and 166 were injured (official number, but many others suffered from the smoke, a lot of firefighters suffered from the smoke but very few went off, they stayed on duty)...the firefighters in the city were still in mourning after the fire in East Boston on Nov 16 where six members died and close to fifty were injured, some were never able to return to duty and of course the War was in full swing. People have told me that if you did not know someone who died, you knew someone who did know someone who died............The firefighters who responded that night faced an unbelievable sight, they did their job but there was not "Stress Team" to talk with and you just went back to work....most fire companies that night were an officer and three or four men, Rescue Co. 3 (Bowdoin Square) was actually an officer and two men, unthought-of today in the city.....Deputy Chief John "Black Jack" McDonough, of Division 2 requested the response of Rescue 2 from Roxbury and Rescue 3 from downtown after the 4th alarm on Box 1521.....Rescue 1 was used to make at least one and maybe two trips to Boston City Hospital with injured patrons.....with that Federal closed rig they had I'M sure they transported several injured to the hospital.....you got to remember there were very few two-way radios in the Fire Department, none of the apparatus, just some of the chief's cars.

There is still plenty of interest in this fire, I constantly receive inquires about this fire.....Stephanie Schorow's book and John Esposito's book on the fire are the latest on this incident and are both well worth reading, especially anyone in the Fire Service....the day is also the anniversary of the very large fire which burned a several large commercial buildings and many other smaller buildings in the city of Lynn, Massachusetts in 1981, that was some job.

The response to the fire was: